


The Long Hunt

by Esteliel



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Derailing Gone Wrong, Extra Treat, Javert Lives, M/M, Murder, Snuff, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 05:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16469627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: The Marais was a ghostly labyrinth of houses that suddenly loomed out of the fog. Every now and then, the dark shape of a carriage would clatter past before being swallowed by the veil of white once more. The further Valjean walked, the thicker the fog became.





	The Long Hunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iberiandoctor (jehane)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane/gifts).



“Be careful, monsieur,” his portress said. “There was another body found near the Halles last night.”

Valjean nodded without paying attention. What had he to fear now from such things?

“And the papers this morning said it’s _him_.” She lowered her voice. “The same one who did all those others in. The slasher of the Seine. The vampire.”

“I’m not going far,” Valjean reassured her, forgetting her words as soon as he heard them. There were always bodies found in alleys, after all. And these days, when there was nothing left to look forward to in life, he would not mind so much if some cut-throat were to make a faster end.

Slowly, he made his way past the Blancs-Manteaux. He walked slowly these days, every step taking effort. Summer was coming to an end. Against the sky, leaves of crimson and vermillion stood, trees shrouded in the color of blood while the air was filled with the damp scent of rotting leaves.

He walked all the way along the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, step after slow step bringing him ever closer to the house around which his world revolved these days. Soon it would get dark. The streets were already filled with fog, which moved in tendrils among the branches stretched out overhead.

Once Valjean reached his destination, he stood still for a long while, watching as the house moved in and out of view as the fog shifted. He did not stir even as the sun slowly sank below the horizon and the first lights were lit behind the windows.

At last, he turned and resumed his slow walk home, never speaking a single word.

***

“Did you hear, monsieur? Another police spy murdered,” his portress said when he made his way down the stairs the next day. “Just down the road! Isn’t it horrible? Bad enough to have them lurking in corners, but now the murders, too! Soon one won’t be able to go to the market anymore without having one’s throat cut, mark my words.”

Valjean nodded in assent, barely hearing her words. He had not slept much. Ever since he had woken, he had listened to the wind roaring around the house, seeing blood-red leaves when he closed his eyes, already feeling the coldness of the approaching season deep in his bones.

Outside, the streets were filled with fog once more. It swallowed every sound.

As he slowly walked the familiar route that would bring him to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, it felt as if the fog had, little by little, erased the large city that surrounded him until it seemed as if he was the only person left alive.

The Marais was a ghostly labyrinth of houses that suddenly loomed out of the fog. Every now and then, the dark shape of a carriage would clatter past before being swallowed by the veil of white once more. The further Valjean walked, the thicker the fog became.

When he reached the house at last, it was almost impossible to make out its shape. Instead of remaining at the street corner to gaze upon it, he slowly walked along the wall that surrounded the garden. There was no sound that could be heard, no voices coming from within, but once, the fog lifted slightly so that he could see that the windows were brilliantly lit, as though there might have been a festivity going on inside.

Valjean lowered his head. From across the garden wall, branches creaked as the wind picked up. More leaves fell, covering the ground in the dark red of dried blood. Valjean stepped on them, the damp scent of decay thick as he began the slow journey back to his home where nothing was waiting for him but the temporary relief of sleep.

Once, he heard a sound—the yowl of a cat, reverberating in an alley so that it almost sounded like a strangled death cry.

Valjean hesitated. He stared at the fog that surrounded him, now so thick that for a moment, he could not remember from which direction he had come.

Briefly, the fog lifted and he thought that he saw a figure in a billowing coat and a hat, not far away from where he was standing. The apparition was as black as coal, while tendrils of mist swirling around its feet. The scent of rotting leaves was overpowering now, a sharp tang of iron filling the air as if the leaves had indeed been dyed with blood.

Then the wind shifted, and the fog with it. A heartbeat later, the spot where he thought he had seen the strange vision was revealed to be empty. There was nothing but white mist swirling in the light beneath the street lamp.

***

“You should not go out today, monsieur,” his portress said when he came down the next morning. “Another murder, would you believe it? In the Marais this time!”

Valjean froze, remembering the figure he had seen, and the strange cry he had heard shortly before. Had he by chance surprised the murderer?

Unease made him shift his shoulders, thinking not of his own safety, or of how he might have saved a man’s life had he left ten minutes earlier, but only of the fact that it was too close to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, and that he should remind Pontmercy that it was not seemly for him and Cosette to walk the streets when they could afford a carriage...

But he could not speak to Pontmercy. Valjean was gone from Paris, or so Cosette thought, and Pontmercy would not see him—not when he had made it so obvious that he did not approve of Valjean spending time with Cosette.

Valjean drew his coat tightly around himself, ignoring the admonishments of his portress as he stepped out into the street. He knew he had no right to call on Cosette—but today, more than ever, he felt himself drawn to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire.

He would not knock on the door. He would stand at the corner and gaze upon the house, find the windows lit, and when he finally walked back home, he would do so in the knowledge that Cosette was safe inside, enjoying all the happiness that was her due in her new life by Pontmercy’s side.

It was as foggy as it had been the day before. The mist crept up from the river on these autumn days to cover the entire city. Valjean was glad of the veil of white that shrouded him on his lonely walk, shielding him from the eyes of passersby until he was just one ghost walking among many.

It was not until he reached the corner of the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine that a strange unease began to build in him. Here, groups of people gathered, women who had returned from the market with heavy baskets clustering together, their whispering like an ominous hum that vibrated through the mist. Only when he passed the third of such groups did the murmur suddenly transform into words.

“Gisquet himself! They did not find his corpse until this morning—his throat slashed,” one woman said.

“Good God, the prefect of police himself! Next they will come for us in our sleep!”

“That is what comes of mixing with criminals and police spies,” another declared in satisfaction.

Valjean did not pause, continuing to walk past the group with slow, heavy steps.

Gisquet murdered! For a moment, he felt a strange relief, for Gisquet had no connection at all to that house in the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. And what was one more death when the cross he himself was bearing already weighed so heavily upon his shoulders that his daily walk alone seemed at times an impossible task?

By the time he had reached the Rue Saint-Louis, he had all but forgotten about the news. He had almost reached his destination, straining towards it with the same instinctive yearning that made birds fly south for the winter, although the closer he came to it, the heavier his steps became.

The fog was so thick that it blocked out the sunlight. Everything looked strangely gloomy, although the sun had not yet set.

Without conscious thought, he turned the corner into a different alley, trying to prolong the walk. As long as he had not reached the house with its light-filled windows, he could pretend that the gate would be open and that within, Cosette would be awaiting with open arms, ready to smile and lovingly scold him for being absent for so long.

There was a sad smile on his lips as he walked down the narrow alley, a tear gathering in his eye which the fog mercifully kept hidden from any stranger’s view.

And then, echoing dully through the fog, he once more heard an unfamiliar sound.

It could have been a cat hunting mice, or a dog guarding a bone against an intruder. It could have been a rag-picker, or perhaps the steps of a man who had become lost in the fog on his way home.

Nevertheless, remembering with a shudder the strange apparition he had seen on the preceding day, and recalling the reports of his portress, Valjean turned towards the direction from which the sound had come. He could see nothing but the wall of ever-shifting white that swayed back and forth in the sparse light. Slowly, he ventured deeper into the fog, almost becoming lost himself, until at last the wall of a house appeared out of the mist. He was still in the small alley—and there was no one he could see.

A cat then, he thought in relief, taking a last step towards the house.

At that same moment, the fog shifted once more, and he suddenly became aware of a movement to his left. As the fog receded from the wall, he saw that there was a little alcove there—and within stood a dark presence.

Valjean’s throat went dry as he recognized the black coat and hat that he had spied before. Like a demon in a sea of white, the man stood before him, his face averted—looking, Valjean now realized, at the body of a man who had sunk against the wall, his eyes unseeing and his waistcoat crimson.

There was crimson on the blade the apparition held as well. Valjean watched as it dripped to the ground.

Then the demon turned around, and Valjean found himself grasping at his chest in shock.

For a long moment, they looked at each other. Then the demon smiled.

“Jean Valjean,” he said in the familiar voice of Inspector Javert.

Valjean felt his heart shuddering in his chest. Blood was still dripping from the blade in Javert’s hand. How was this possible?

He had not seen Javert since that night of the barricade, when they had returned the body of Marius to his family. Javert had no longer been there when Valjean had thought himself in his power—but was it possible that Javert had not simply left that night? Had some demon taken possession of his body?

Or had the grief over the loss of Cosette at last broken not his heart, but his reason; was he now seeing ghosts where there were none, given visions of the demons of Hell instead of angels?

As he swallowed, his eyes were pulled towards the corpse at Javert’s feet once more. Blood was still dripping from the slashed throat, a stream of crimson that had not only dyed the victim’s clothes, but also filled the air with the heavy, iron scent of blood.

No, this was no dream. Even though the sight before him was impossible. Unless—was the victim perhaps the murderer who had haunted these streets, and had Javert been forced to defend himself by grappling with the man and taking his own weapon off him?

“There you are then, at last,” Javert murmured, still staring at him with eyes that looked black in the gloom. Blood kept dripping from his blade; Javert paid it no attention. “Do you know how you have haunted me?” Javert laughed, the sound unfamiliar and sharp. “Then it comes to an end at last. Surely that’s why you’ve been sent here.”

“I don’t understand, Javert.” Valjean felt something inside him tremble. Never before had he felt fear at the sight of Javert—but something about the man seemed so fundamentally changed that Valjean felt himself on edge, as though a wrong step might unravel the very fabric of the world. “What comes to an end? What is going on?”

“What, he asks—he, who haunts me; he who has caused me such torment. He who shoved me of the straight path and forced me to see that I had been in truth walking in darkness all along.” Javert bared his teeth as he slowly came closer.

Valjean found himself unable to move, shuddering as Javert reached out and rested a hand against his chest.

“You do not even know what you have done.” Javert’s eyes were fever-bright, his lips lifting into the caricature of a smile. “No matter. While you have been safe in your home, I walked this new path you had set me on. I righted old wrongs. As severe as I was before, I am still; I see such wrongs in this world—oh, the things I remember!—and I right these wrong, one by one, until at last the slate of my own failings is wiped clean in blood.”

Valjean swallowed, his chest tight. “But what can you possibly mean, Javert?” The words came out breathless, the stink of blood filling his senses even now.

There was a certain, terrible meaning to Javert’s words that made him reel—but certainly it could not be true. Not Javert, who had always been rigid, as irreproachable as steel for all of his life.

“Do you not understand?” Javert was even closer now, so close that Valjean could feel the heat of his breath against his face. “Do you not see—you who led me down this path? If I am not Michael, then I must be Lucifer; if I was blind before, then must I not be twice as severe now, when at last I see?”

“You killed all these men?” Valjean could barely believe what he was saying.

Javert’s smile widened in response. “I cleansed these streets of corrupt police spies, of brutal guards who beat convicts to death, of a Commissaire who laughed at the suggestions for the improvement of prison conditions I sent.”

Valjean’s heart clenched. “And M. Gisquet, the prefect of police?”

“It was the prefect who gave the order that doctors are to inform on wounded insurgents. A corrupt prefect. A man who secretly employed murderers as double agents. He would not listen. Now this injustice is another that has been cleansed.”

Valjean swallowed convulsively as he shook his head. “It can’t be true. I know you, Javert. You would not—”

“You know the man I used to be,” Javert said mercilessly. “Here. Don’t flinch away now—look at me. Look at what you’ve forced me to become.” With his bloodied hand, he grasped Valjean’s wrist to press it against his chest.

The blood on Javert’s fingers was wet against Valjean’s wrist—but there, beneath his palm, he could feel Javert’s heart beating in his chest.

Not a demon then. Not a dream. Javert was flesh and blood, as real as the blood that was still warm on his skin.

Valjean swayed, feeling as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice.

“Come now,” Javert murmured. “Perhaps it is only right that we should meet again. I wonder—when you freed me at the barricade, did you know what you were about to do? That you cut not just the rope that held me bound, but the order that held me tethered to the straight road I had walked? You made me see, all of a sudden—see with brutal clarity that my path had been shrouded in darkness, and that the men I had looked up to were no better or worse than the men I had pursued; that there were demons in the prefecture worse than those in La Force; that there was no goodness in what I had done; that Authority was no more than a hollow idol of bronze behind which was hidden corruption and injustice.”

“I did that?” Valjean felt light-headed. The world was spinning around him. Javert’s words had made the very ground beneath his feet tremble.

He reached out for the wall to steady himself. Javert did not step back, his warm, sticky hand still closed around Valjean’s wrist.

“You did me no favor,” Javert said, and then laughed soundlessly. “Better I had died that night, never to know which path I had walked all of my life. But that was not to be. My new path led me into darkness as well—but what is more blood on hands that had been stained with so much innocent blood already?”

“It is not too late to repent,” Valjean said desperately. “Javert—turn back from that path, turn—”

He broke off when Javert’s grip on him tightened, shuddering when he became aware of the blood that encircled his own wrist now. How many men had died since that day on the barricade?

He did not remember the details of his portress’s gossip, but there had been several murders. Police spies, prison guards—and the prefect of police himself. Murdered in cold blood, all of them. Could a man repent of such a thing?

Javert laughed again, the sound hoarse, like a rusty vice closing.

“Oh, I know very well that it is too late for that,” Javert said. “Do you not see? Even on that day when you freed me, it was too late. But if I have to walk in darkness, I will be a shadow that makes the other demons fear. I do not repent. What Authority will judge me? That Superior who saw fit to set you, a criminal, above me? If it is true that a convict can be Good, then surely an agent of police can be Evil. You know it is so. And shall I now tremble before the laws of men—the same laws that saw you suffering for nineteen years? To the deuce with those laws. And to the deuce with my soul. If no one else will clean these streets of evil, I will do it myself, no matter the cost.”

“I did not know what had become of you.” Valjean’s heart was still racing in his chest, the mist closing in around them until it seemed as if they were all alone in the world, Javert in his black greatcoat like an envoy from Hell who had come to taunt Valjean in his final moments. “Javert, I never wanted—I never thought you might—”

“No,” Javert said, “and why would you? You owe me nothing. It is I who haunted you. But that long chase has come to an end now.”

Valjean could hear his heart beating in his chest, ever thud as loud as the ringing of church bells in the eerie silence of the fog.

“Yes,” Javert said again, and he raised his blood-stained hand to rest it gently against Valjean’s cheek. “That long hunt is at an end now.”

“What do you mean?” Valjean asked, even though he knew what Javert meant—a part of him had known ever since he had spied him for the first time.

“You released me once.” Javert’s smile widened, his fingertips soft against Valjean’s face. “But you know very well that I cannot release you.”

Slowly, gently, the pad of Javert’s thumb stroked downward from Valjean’s cheek until it came to press against where his pulse was racing in his throat. Valjean drew in a shuddering breath, involuntarily raising his head to give Javert better access.

Javert’s smile widened a little. “Perhaps it is fitting for this path to end where it began. Here, with you. It begins with you, and it shall end with you.”

Valjean’s heart was beating as if it wanted to escape from his chest. But even though panic was making his blood rush though his veins, a strange calm had come over Valjean when now, for the first time, Javert’s words began to make a terrible sense.

He could put an end to this dark and terrible path Javert had taken. He could stop more horrors from being committed.

And perhaps, by offering up his own life in recompense, he could pay penance for having sent Javert down this path.

Let his own blood be the last spilled by those hands. Let there be an end of it.

In truth, an end would not be unwelcome. Was that not what he had prayed for, on every dark and lonely day when he had lived for his walks to the Marais alone, only to deny himself the sight of Cosette, who could not find true happiness as long as he was alive?

Many a night had he prayed for God to at last take this burden off his shoulders. Now he had received an answer—although it was not an angel that had been sent to him in his final hour but a man behind whom he could see a dark shadow that made him tremble.

Yet even so, there would be an end. Even so, there would be rest for his weary soul, the cup emptied down to the bitter dregs.

“Will you promise that?” he said, trembling in Javert’s grasp. “That it will have an end with me? That you shall spill no more blood, no matter what?”

“So you seek to negotiate even at the very end,” Javert said thoughtfully. “As if your life were of no worth but as a bargaining chip. What a confounding man you are. But yes, Valjean; I will promise this. It will have an end now. I won’t take another’s life after today.”

“Then that is enough to satisfy me,” Valjean said desperately. “Only do it quickly.”

Javert’s fingertip ghosted along his throat so that he trembled again, heat rushing through his body, although he believed that he could already hear the great rushing of the wings of the angel of death. Almost tenderly, Javert’s fingers drew apart his cravat, and then he smiled once more.

“That,” he murmured, “I cannot promise. But what are a few more moments between men such as us?”

Valjean’s muscles would not move. Everything had fallen away but for the rapid beating of his heart and the heat of Javert’s finger touching his throat. The touch was as gentle as a caress. Valjean’s heart kept pounding, blood rushing through his veins—but even so he did not lift a single finger when Javert’s hand came to encircle his throat, his thumb tracing up and down the pulsing artery.

Light seemed to flicker in and out of view as tendrils of mist moved past them, Javert’s hat obscuring the lamp above. Valjean felt weightless, trapped by the dark presence in front of him, yet also strangely free. His shoulders no longer ached, as though someone had lifted the cross from his back.

Dimly, he registered that heat had pooled low in his stomach. He was as surprised at the rousing of his body at this threat as by the sensation that tugged demandingly between his legs, for he had not felt it in many years, and never with the warmth of another so close.

Was this some approximation of the ecstasy of the martyr, the celestial smile that graced the lips of the saints even as their bodies were pierced by sword or arrow?

His lips parted, but there was no breath to speak, for in that same moment, Javert’s other hand had come up. The cut was so quick and sharp that Valjean did not even realize it had happened until the hot, wet pulse of blood ran down his throat.

All of a sudden, his knees could no longer carry him. He felt himself falling, only to find himself suddenly in Javert’s arms, stretched out on the ground, the black greatcoat sheltering him like large wings.

“Now you are truly mine, Jean Valjean.” Javert’s hand rested warm against Valjean’s cheek once more.

There was a pressure in his chest. Valjean’s heart was beating sluggishly.

_Thud, thud, thud._

He listened to it, some part of him clinging to consciousness with desperate strength although he already felt the dizzying sensation of tilting over the edge of a cliff.

Javert’s finger trailed along his lips, Valjean’s heart still rebelling against the inevitable. Then he felt Javert’s lips against his own.

Valjean’s heart gave a final, surprised jolt as he raised a hand to Javert’s hair. Even now he fought against the relentless pull that wanted to draw him into the white mist that surrounded them, the vision before his eyes dimming and dimming. His lips moved against Javert’s as he gasped, and he, who had neither loved nor touched another in his lifetime, now found himself struggling to hold on. Gasping weakly at the strange, searing heat of Javert’s tongue invading his mouth, his body trembled with a confused desire even as his own lifeblood came spilling hot and wet between them.

“It is over,” Javert said, the words ringing hollow in Valjean’s ear as around him, all sound seemed to die away. Even the sluggish beating of his heart, which once had sounded as loud as a bell, had nearly fallen silent.

Then he saw the blade come up one last time. Javert was still smiling, and even when darkness finally closed in on him, Valjean remembered the heat of that kiss, which had seared him like a brand.


End file.
